My android phone as a screen lock password. Somehow, I've ended up in a situation where the phone no longer shows a keyboard when it boots up but shows "tap to speak" and that too does not work. I click on the "microphone" icon and nothing happens.

How do I go about restoring the keyboard.

The phone is on wifi as I can hear the beeps when I get messages etc...but can't get past the locked screen.

The device used to be on my google play (GP) device list but now it does not. How can I get the phone back on the GP recognized devices.

1 Answer
1

The solution suggested by @Firelord worked perfectly.
I had to purchase a micro-USB to Female USB OTG cable to resolve my issue. The micro-USB end connects to the phone (where the power cable connects) and connect a keyboard into the female usb end.

Power cycle the phone (for the phone to recognize the keyboard ) and just enter the password using the keyboard.

I had struggled with this - installing adb and figuring out how to sideload (manually install) keyboard apps and all kinds of other suggestions from various sites.

I was just moments away from wiping my phone when I remembered Stackexchange.